BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — Central Florida State and local leaders and their partners met Monday in Brevard County to discuss how far their clean-up efforts have come along the Indian River Lagoon.
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One of the focuses of the discussion was the Crane Creek /M-1 canal flow restoration project in Melbourne.
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Those who attended agreed the projects would be completed at a marathon pace.
Another partner in the project is St John’s River Water Management.
“A lot of water used to drain to the St. John’s River has now been diverted and drained to the Indian River Lagoon,” said Mike Register of the St. John’s River Water Management District.
Register explained that what the Crane Creek Project does is it takes the water from the creek; it’s then ditched, drained, and put back in.
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The $20 million project is expected to keep thousands of pounds of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorusout of the Indian River Lagoon, where they could fuel harmful algal blooms.
“The construction just began a few months ago and will take a few years.
“It is a very large project.” It will be a while before it’s completed,” said Terri Breeden of “Save Our Indian River Lagoon.
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State Senator Debbie Mayfield represents the Brevard and Indian River Counties.
Because a total of $125 million has been dedicated to the Indian River Lagoon by the State, many other cost-sharing projects are now in the works, Mayfield said.
In Brevard County alone, they secured $31 million for those projects, including demucking canals or additional septic to sewer connections.
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Another big project that just wrapped was in Volusia County. Twenty-four abandoned septic tanks in the town of Ponce Inlet were also removed.
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